Syracuse Crunch enforcer Brian McGrattan trying to evolve as the game changes

Jim Commentucci/The Post-StandardSyracuse Crunch winger Brian McGrattan hopes his all-around play for the team at the end of this season opens up some eyes on the free agent market.

In a game against Toronto on Wednesday, Syracuse Crunch right winger Brian McGrattan hit the Marlies’ Josh Engel into the boards so hard that a chunk of plexiglass fell out.

The 6-foot-4, 235-pound McGrattan whirled around expecting some frontier justice to come his way in the form of a mad mass of Marlies.

“That’s five guys on my back. No doubt,” McGrattan said of the old days.

Instead, the enforcer was all tensed up with no place to go. Toronto middleweight Jeff Cowan pawed at him a bit, but it was a reluctant message that fell a generation short of the tit-for-tat detriment demanded by McGrattan’s blow.
At age 29 and with a long penalty minutes rap sheet, it’s moments like this that make McGrattan feel like a dinosaur.

“I’d say we were the last of the dying breed,” McGrattan said of his full-time heavyweight peer group. “There’s not too many guys like that coming in.”

McGrattan has one huge edge over his fellow fighters when it comes to holding off extinction. It’s turned out that he can actually play hockey. At least, well enough to have earned 182 career NHL games and now show the vague outline of a scoring threat with six goals and three assists in 14 games with the Crunch.

“I wouldn’t say fighting is leaving the game now,” McGrattan said. “But they are getting rid of the guys who are one-dimensional. You have to bring a lot more aspects to your game to stick around now.”

AHL and NHL roster spots could be earned differently as recently as six years ago. In 2004-05, McGrattan set an AHL record with an astounding 551 penalty minutes for Binghamton, a total that included 41 majors, almost all for fighting. McGrattan, who added seven goals and an assist with Binghamton that season, admitted that he was more eager than talented in the fisticuffs department.

“It looked like my hand was a meat grinder by the end of the year. I had to find a way to stay around. I’d find the best way to learn (how to fight) is losing,” he said. “As tough as guys are, you can’t win every night. As long as you’re willing, it’s a win-win.”

The trail of dropped gloves earned McGrattan a three-year stay in Ottawa, where he compiled 287 penalty minutes, two goals and eight assists.

“Ottawa was a team in the past known as a soft team, more a team getting taken advantage of,” McGrattan said. “When I got there, things changed.”

McGrattan since bounced from Phoenix to Calgary to Boston, the latter organization sending him to Providence earlier this season. McGrattan was traded to Syracuse in February, and in a combined 53 AHL games has a half-dozen fights and 149 penalty minutes.

He can’t understand why those numbers aren’t higher. Back in his youth, he’d chase down any old heavyweight he could for a valuable — if painful — lesson. Now, with the rough stuff pushed to hockey’s periphery, he sidles up to alleged fighters, taunts them with threats and then shakes his head when they respond with neither words nor action.

“I thought guys would be gunning for me. But it hasn’t been like that,” McGrattan said. “It’s a lot different now. We’ve played against teams and there’s guys with penalty minutes in the high 200s, and I don’t get a sniff back. Back six, seven, eight years ago, there was two or three guys on every team (who would fight).”

With that door slammed shut, McGrattan said he sees his end of the season run in Syracuse as a showcase for any team that might be interested in him when he becomes a free agent this summer. Syracuse coach Mark Holick has complied by giving him top-line minutes and even power play shifts.

“It all comes with opportunity, right?” McGrattan said. “That (Holick’s confidence) is a big boost to me. When I came here, I wanted to make the most of the opportunity that was given to me. I told them I’m going to take it as a 20-game tryout, I’m going to play as hard as I can for you, and we’ll see where it takes me.”

McGrattan leaves no doubt about his destination, even in this new era of the sport.

“I think the way I’ve been playing here, I’ve been playing pretty good,” he said. “I think I’ve opened up some eyes. I have no doubt I’ll be back in the NHL.”